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After an epidemic spreads through the country, Brooklyn Harper’s high school years come to an abrupt end.

Implanted in a rural camp, Brooklyn and her friends are cut off from their families and the outside world. Each day is filled with combat training to assure their safety against the crazed, belligerent, and deadly— those infected with a mysterious virus.

If the world couldn’t get any crazier, a letter ups the insanity...

After being assured day after day that the world outside their little camp had been compromised, Brooklyn’s cabin-mate, Dawson Winters, finds a letter that turns everything they’d known upside down. There is a world outside the trees that surrounds their camp, and the virus they all feared seems non-existent.

Determined to see it herself, Brooklyn plots with others to attempt an escape...

On the outside, Brooklyn finds the world is as normal as ever. But when they are attacked in the city, they dispose of their attackers far more efficiently than any normal human.. Is there more to Brooklyn and her friends then just being highly trained?

As their exploration continues, the group is faced with impossible feats. Betrayal, love, death, and a powerful sense of camaraderie lead Brooklyn and her friends to fight for their life, their freedom, and most of all, each other.

Omen Operation doesn’t start out well – in fact, it is rushed and confusing at the beginning, dropping the reader in what seems like it should be chapter 3 or 4. There is no time to get to know the characters or the life they’re living before they’re already off. About a third of the way in, however, the book starts hitting its stride, and the plot becomes a lot more engaging. Once I’d caught up with the story, the characters began to shine, with their own quirks and diverse back stories. I ended up enjoying this book more than I expected, and I recommend that potential readers try to stick through the rocky beginning to get to the action and excitement later on.

Best and worst

The best: Some of the fight scenes were brutal – both physically and emotionally so.

The worst: The beginning was all kinds of confusing and rushed, both plot-wise and character-wise.

First impressions

Ooooh, sounds like a zombie book! And I’m going through a bit of a zombie phase, especially with kickass girls who can fight back.

The cover is ok, though the girl’s hair annoys me. It just doesn’t look real…

Break it down

Who

Finally a book written in third person perspective! It was so refreshing after a series of first persons. That being said, it wasn’t perfect. While it was written in third person, it still seemed to shift focus on different people, sometimes a few times during a page, leaving me to reread paragraphs when I realised “she” had swapped from one girl to another.

Bearing in mind that the main group of characters of the story had spent almost two years bunking in a cabin together and knew each other really well, the beginning was a bit difficult to read, partly because the characters had existing personalities and relationships that were just assumed rather than introduced to the reader. Once in the main fray of the plot, these traits relationships fleshed out, but they were just dropped on the reader at the start.

The central character of the story was Brooklyn, a high school senior when she was taken to the rural camp over a year before the start of the book. She was best friends with Gabriel, and the two shared a cabin with Julian, Dawson and Porter. As I got to know them, I began to like them each for their own reasons. Gabriel, for example, was unapologetically vicious, thrilled to fight and kill when she got the change; however, she was also incredibly loving and protective of “Brookie”. Everyone ended up being BAMFs.

I want to spotlight the diversity of the characters in this story. The group of escapees varied in race and sexual orientation, but these details were slowly slipped into the story so as to let the reader know about them while not making a big deal about them. It was natural. Furthermore, an issue that I don’t feel is represented enough in YA was mentioned: periods. And Brooke took it even further, sharing that one of the characters wasn’t able to have her period due to medical reasons. YES. This is part of some people’s reality, and it is so good to see it in a book!

P.S. It’s confusing to write Brooklyn and Brooke, but I have a thing, ya know? I use authors’ last names. I don’t want to change. Don’t make me change. Please. Just deal, k?

What

The blurb says that Dawson finds a letter, which spurs the group to take action. This happens right away, and there’s no explanation as to how or why he finds the letter. It’s like Brooke wasn’t sure how to start the story, so threw something together that made even a sliver of sense. It’s only once the group has left their camp and interrogated a certain someone that the story starts to come together and get exciting.

And it sure does get exciting after this threshold! Think hardcore fighting, running and life-threatening moments, with a dash of hippies and government conspiracy theories. After a start that almost made me want to quit, I was suddenly hooked in. Brooke was throwing all kinds of crazy at the gang, and it killed me to have to go to work and stop reading!

Where & when

How do I tell you about the setting without giving too much away??? Ok, ok… The book starts out in an undisclosed camp in the woods, somewhere in the United States. As for time, Brooke was a modern-day, normal high school senior when she was first attacked, a year and a half before the book opens. The gang then escapes the camp and drives off into the real world…where what they find and what they’ve been told doesn’t match up.

How (was it written)

So I’ve already told you that pacing was a massive issue in the beginning. As per my own usual neuroses, I can also tell you that there were some errors in here, including confusing of words like “wary” and “weary”, or “you’re” and “your”. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. These things bug me!

Aside from the technicalities –which should have been picked up by an editor and not really the fault of Brooke– the writing did manage to gather itself into an exhilarating ride that kept me going!

Why (you should read it)

Honestly, if you can get past the first third of the story, I can tell you it gets actually quite exciting. If you like governments being naughty, science experiments going wrong and fast-paced action, all with some fairly good characters (once you get to know them), then I think you’ll like this!

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0: Couldn't finish1: Want my precious reading hours back2: Could have done without it3: It was good, but it's not an essential read4: Really liked it and glad I picked it up5: Absolutely loved it and would read again

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